IAN KAMAU

One Day Soon (LP) by Ian Kamau

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YESTERDAYS VISUALS

(ONE DAY SOON)

By IanKamau | Published: February 11, 2013

The song ‘Yesterdays’ was released Oct 7, 2011 on the album One Day Soon. It features sign language performance by Muna Jimale (UK based Cultural Curator) and I. Shot by Nabil Shash and assisted by Aden Abebe & Daniel Balay in Esplanade, Toronto. The piece is shot in front of a mural painted as part of The Brighten The Corners Project (coordinated by Well and Good in 2010) – artists: Patrick Thompson & Alexa Hatanaka

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ONE DAY SOON /

BECAUSE WE WERE BORN

RELEASE GATHERING

(11/11/11)

Sometimes we don’t know what we have when we have it.

After the release of my album, One Day Soon, I experienced one of the longest and lowest periods of depression in my life thus far. I suffered it mostly alone in my apartment during a cold, grey winter in Toronto. Most people I know where completely unaware save a few who cared, and cared to know. I am lucky to have a handful of close friends who supported me though it. The album was not doing what I wanted, a relationship I was in ended between when the album was released on Oct 7 and the album release celebration on Nov 11, I found myself arguing with friends and avoiding them as I only wanted peace, I felt drained, I was left with a great sense of isolation and loneliness.

I wanted my music to be ‘successful,’ I thought the energy that I put in would come back in a form that would help me pay my rent, for longer than two months and not drive me into debt. I felt immobilized; many days I didn’t leave my apartment, often I didn’t leave my bed.

The truth is, I don’t know what I’m doing. I am an artist, that is the only thing I ever wanted to be, the only thing I ever wanted to do, I have other interests of course, but they always lead me back to something creative, something about communication and purpose. I have failed a lot, made a lot of mistakes, but how is it possible when you know so clearly what you should be doing that it never really works? 

One day I was having a conversation with my friend Sarah. After an hour of listening to me complain about what I wanted, who had done me wrong and what I expected that did not come true she quietly said “were you attached to the outcome?” I was still for a moment, “yes, yes I was, yes I am.” I have told many people about this moment since it happened, including her, simple and to the point, yes I was attached to a specific outcome and no; that did not happen. I would not say that in an interview “I wanted this album to generate money for me” but that’s what I wanted. I want to make money as an artist, so that I can be an artist full time.

Audience listens during show 11.11.11

The reality is this, I never made music for money, I didn’t put energy into music as a money generator, I made/make art because I love it. I am not naïve, money is important because I need it to live; I am not a child of wealth living off their parents, I don’t believe that who money is not important, however, it is not the driving force in my artistic ‘career.’ I now know that I want and need my art to make me money, or balance it with something that does or I will have to stop. My artmaking me money and not being shy about that is different however to making my art for money.

I frequently watch a documentary called “Glass.” The film is about Philip Glass a now well-known American composer. At one point in the film Glass says that he spent years financing his own orchestra by working as a cab driver and a plumber to ensure that he could play his own music. At the beginning of the movie he blurts out “there is plenty of music out there to listen to, you don’t have to listen to mine” how stubborn, how foolish, how inspirational; maybe not that bright, but it worked for him. My friend Ravi sent me an article that K’naan wrote in the New York Times that’s been circulating the internet, him and I have the opposite problem apparently, not compromising and elusive success, or finding success through compromise, some balance would be nice.

A few months ago I started editing the footage from the album release gathering that I co-presented with my friend Keisha-Monique on November 11, 2011 (11/11/11). I was in South Africa at the time and as I went through it tears welled up in my eyes, how amazing that day was. On November 11, 2011 I was tired and stressed, I was unhappy with the sound and the lights, it seemed like a million things were going wrong, the sound threw off my performance, I wanted to do something more innovative with the band, I wish I had more rehearsal time, I just wanted to do a great show, something that people hadn’t experienced in Toronto before; I didn’t have the resources. It was hard for me to enjoy it. But as I looked back and saw all the faces, all the artists, all the people in Toronto that came out to celebrate with us, I shed tears, how amazing. I emailed Keisha and Kemba (the coordinators), my band-mates and a few others who participated in creating that night and I thanked them for making such a beautiful celebration.

One Day Soon Album Artwork

I have been trying to be an artist for so long that I didn’t even realize that I had become one. My vision of success was tied to money, I still struggle with that balance,. The energy that I wanted to create I was at least in the process of creating; for a moment it was there. Despite the imperfections something happened that I am now proud of, I missed a lot of it in searching for perfection (I’m a virgo, sue me).

So much has happened since the album came out, not the least of which was being invited to Capetown, then all across South Africa, then Ethiopia, Rwanda and back to Nairobi, I didn’t spend a dollar. The energy that I have been trying to gather and put out keeps coming back in waves and sometimes in the most unexpected ways.

I still am having difficulty paying my rent, I still want to spend all of my time being an artist, I still want to do big things, and build things, and support others in building things for themselves, I still want to build a space that fosters this energy, but I realized, albeit a little late that I am successful and I appreciate those who have followed me on this journey. I will keep pushing, one way or another and maybe I’ll get there one day soon (sorry, I had to do it).

-Ian Kamau

CLICK HERE TO ORDER ONE DAY SOON

>via: http://iankamau.com/home/one-day-soon-because-we-were-born-release-gathering-...

 

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BLACK BODIES

(ONE DAY SOON)

 

By IANKAMAU | Published: AUGUST 4, 2012

This video was directed by RT for The NE the song ‘Black Bodies‘ is available on the album One Day Soon//

As I write this I am sitting in a cafe in Junction in Nairobi, Kenya; one of the places that made me decide to record the album One Day Soon. I came here after spending two months travelling through South Africa (Capetown, Port Elizabeth, East London, Grahamstown, Durban, Pretoria, Johannesburg) and am now on the verge trying to confirm a trip/show in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

I have been away from Toronto, for almost twelve weeks in a particularly violent summer for the city. Anyone who has worked with young people in the areas affectionately branded (yes I mean branded) as ‘priority neighbourhoods’ by government and large non-profit agencies knows that this type of violence is not unprecedented, unfortunately in many parts of Toronto it is quite regular.

What is different about this violence, as in the case of Jane Creba on boxing day a few years ago, is that these shootings have been ‘random,’ they have put people in danger who don’t usually feel that they are vulnerable to this type of violence and that freaks them/us out. What incidents like this should reveal is how privileged many of us are to live in relative safety. Many people around Toronto and many people around the globe do not enjoy this type of privilege. For some reason we are more afraid of ‘random’ violence because it might take the lives of ‘innocent’ people. The idea of ‘innocence’ is however a value judgement on human life. ‘Innocent’ people are more valuable than ‘the guilty’ by societies standards. Unfortunately ‘guilt’ is often perceived. I’ll explain. When I walk into banks, corner stores and certain neighbourhoods I personally can be perceived as potentially guilty or at least worthy of fear despite my good intention, it comes along with the territory of being a black male in North America (and almost anywhere else in the world quite frankly). 

Many young people in Toronto, often but not exclusively black , often but not exclusively male have lost their lives in Rexdale, Jane & Finch, Esplanade, Jungle, P.O., Regent Park, Blake Street, Malvern etc. etc. etc. for a long time and there hasn’t been this kind of outrage as the Jane Creba shooting or the Eaton Centre shooting that happened a few weeks back. All loss of life is tragic because all life is valuable. We show our entitlement when we think our safety is worth more than the many people who live with this kind of violence every day as a result of their economic standing, physical environment or social standing. If you are more upset by Jane Creba than Chantel Dunn for instance, you might be practicing this form or prejudice, as a matter of fact, if you live in Toronto and you know the name Jane Creba and not the name Chantel Dunn you might be subject to our medias prejudice. Why are we more outraged when this happens close to us? Why are we more outraged when the victim looks like us? What is the value of a human life?

It is spectacularly short-sighted to think that the answer to this type of violence is throwing money at the issue, more police, tougher jail sentences or kicking people out of the city (a suggestion from our amazingly short sighted Toronto mayor). If I continued to have faith in the non-profit sector I might say that the answer is more programs or something cliche like that, but unfortunately I don’t believe that the answer as that simple. The answer is somewhere in what our society values and what society does not value (I feel like I could write an entire book on society and value.. so I’ll just leave it at that).

A few years ago I saw a young man get shot in my neighbourhood; heard shots, looked out the back window of my apartment down to the street where I used to ride my bike as a kid and saw this young man on his knees holding his chest and stomach while his friend called the police. Three weeks later this young man passed away in the hospital due to his injuries. His name wasJermaine, he was not the first or the last to die of a gunshot wound in Esplanade, and my neighbourhood is not known as a particularly dangerous one. I did not know this young man and I could choose whether to be involved or not despite our proximity; another privilege.

A few weeks later his mother came to lay flowers and ask the press for support in helping to find his murderer, she came with his girlfriend and his new baby.

This incident was the impetus for the writing of the song Black Bodies. It was different to me to feel the closeness of this violence as opposed to thinking about it academically, and I still didn’t feel the effects personally; I personally didn’t lose anyone I had a relationship with.

Black Bodies references the line in the song “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday (later covered by Nina Simone), specifically the line “black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the Poplar trees.” The bridge of ‘Black Bodies’ specifically makes multiple references to the song ‘Strange Fruit.’ ‘Black Bodies’ is an attempt to re-contextualize the lynching of black people, specifically black men. At one stage people were being lynched by racists simply for being black, now, in addition to the justice system, education system, economic and social systems lynching us (statistically black people are the highest represented in prisons even where they are not the majority, highest represented in terms of drop out rates, are large populations in poverty stricken communities and are often high occupants of what some call the ‘under class) we are also highly represented as victims of violence, gun violence specifically and often from our own community. Unfortunately I now know people who “occupy both sides of the trigger” and it has changed my perspective. Some I supposed would believe that this has only to do with blacks as people, an enormous and prejudice simplification of the problem that denies so many historical, economic and social factors as to be almost laughable, if the reality completely serious (but again, I digress).

Myself and Randall Thorne (RT) started disguising a concept for the visuals for this song over a year ago; we applied for and received a VideoFACT grant (which I wasn’t expecting). The original idea was a short documentary with the mothers of victims of gun violence from different part ofToronto telling their stories form their perspective. We went and met with five families who had lost their sons to violence and listened to their stories, their frustrations, their pain and their joy. For me, despite this idea not panning out, this was the most important part of me creating this song. Unfortunately because of the sensitivity of the subject matter we ended up not being able proceed with the original idea for the video as we had envisioned it and decided to go a more traditional route due to logistics and an over-extended production schedule.

I would however like to thank all the mothers and families that we met with for sharing their stories, opening their doors and more than anything educating us about a side of these stories that I still don’t feel like has been properly explored. Thank you so much for your time, resilience, strength and vulnerability.

Below are the lyrics to the song (I thought for this one it was important). Thanks again to all the families that we spoke to and thank you to RT and Rinku for being so patient and working so hard on this project.

This video is dedicated to all those people who have lost their lives too soon.

Black Bodies (Lyrics)

(Verse 1) In the shadow of the gun the unsung live away from the sun / the river of peace it’s often the shallowest one / though once some hung to silence our voices / violence and riots for denying our choices / now the choice it’s for black boys to fall like rain / bullets make a body fold like paper cranes / our lives at a time both sacred and profane / and black folk selling black folk crack cocaine / and the business is good / customers come to visit if you live in the hood / so now we love the ghetto we believe it’s our home / the streets are our kingdom the corner our throne / we’re like flies in the fibers or spiders webs / trapped / taking orders like Simon says / we no longer court the truth but seek a bullet instead / ‘cause the world barely cares if we’re alive or dead

(Chorus) Black bodies on the concrete / falling down / calling out / save our souls / black bodies on the concrete / falling down / calling out / save us / black bodies on the concrete just like mine / we believe it’s fine / to pay no mind / black bodies on the concrete / here and there / everywhere / who really cares?

(Verse 2) Like stakes in the heart bullets like bats tend to fly after dark / so we make sure the children are home from the park / a shame, everyday another name to discuss / flood the streets with their guns and they blame it on us / always at the back of the bus as they say / Jane made the front page after boxing day / these guns you can get them off the streets of the shelves / so the youth make the purchase to protect themselves / parents unaware of what the new reality is / tragically a catastrophe where families live / and many black boys becoming men on their own / you won the lottery if you got a father at home / so we find the wrong influence looking for a father figure / don’t see the irony in why we call each other “nigger” / it kills the concept of a brother or a sister / no surprise we occupy both sides of the trigger / standing in wonder / under the cover of the sun / listen the distant thunder of the summer of the gun / put the truth right in front of our eyes we don’t see it / that’s why these young brothers say “peace” but don’t mean it / fighting wars unaware of what we’re dying for / foolish, the streets they ain’t mine of yours / so we cry and say goodbye to the lives we know / ‘cause as fast as they come they go

(Chorus)

(Bridge) Our mothers weep / for their fallen youth / in this urban war / we are the hardened troops / still on the front line / yes the strangest fruit / falling like autumn leafs / cut off from the root / no longer southern trees these days it’s city streets / what a brutal fait we force ourselves to meet / by our own hands / so those that know won’t speak / what a cost we pay for thinking life is cheap / our spirits weak / we pray our souls to keep / bullets sing lullabies for an endless sleep

(Verse 3) Like playing with flame / kids are killers now their making a name / only some but our community it’s taking the blame / though the killer knows the blame is essentially his / most folks are unaware of who the enemy is / it’s distorted, whenever a life is aborted before its time / and our kind sure can’t afford it / still it seems that the dream of the streets won’t cease / but we know that blessed are those that make peace / guns make a mockery of the life we treasure / leaving flesh twisted like treble clefs in a measure / calling out loud screaming “love” we can’t say it enough now / we’re smearing our blood on the pavement / giving the same pain / making the same claims / living the same shame / killing to maintain / because we don’t trust we doubt first / a life without worth it’s prone to outbursts / so we’re still dying / only the killer has changed / Africans once in the waves the worth of a slave / now the dope on the street is the rope on the tree / and these guns are the box kicked from under our feet / the hate is not replaced it’s the fists in the fight / respect for life it’s rotting before it’s ripe / we didn’t chose these ghettos, favelas and slums / but it seems they made these Goddamn guns… for black bodies

(peace)

>via: http://iankamau.com/home/black-bodies_-one-day-soon/

 

 

CFA: MOREMI initiative for women’s leadership in Africa (15 March 2013)

By Nara Improta on 15 February , 2013 

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS – 2013 MILEAD FELLOWSHIP.

Moremi Initiative for Women’s Leadership in Africa (Moremi Initiative) is pleased to announce its annual call for applications for the 2013 Moremi Leadership Empowerment and Development (MILEAD) Fellows Program.

The MILEAD Fellows Program is a long-term leadership development program designed to identify, develop and promote emerging young African Women leaders to attain and thrive in leadership in their community and Africa as a whole. The program targets dynamic young women interested in developing transformational leadership skills that help them address issues facing women and girls across communities in Africa. The MILEAD Program equips Fellows with the world class knowledge, skills, values and networks they need to succeed as 21st century women leaders. Applications are welcome from young African women ages 19 – 25, living in Africa and the Diaspora.
The MILEAD Fellowship will be awarded to 25 outstanding young women who have exhibited leadership potential in their community, organization, and/or profession. To be eligible for the program, an applicant must be African, living on the continent or in the Diaspora; agree to participate in all required activities related to MILEAD – beginning with a three-week residential Summer Institute in Ghana; and commit to a community change project. Specific requirements of the program and related dates are outlined in the application package. Please review program and application guidelines carefully, before completing your application.

Please note that this one year program is not a full-time fellowship.  Selected candidates may remain full time students or work full time for the program duration, except during the 3-week summer institute. The 3-week summer institute is an intensive and full-time residential program and all fellows will be required to attend. The rest of the program involves community-based, online and other distance activities.

We invite you to share this application information with emerging young African women leaders who have the passion and potential to help transform Africa.

How to Apply:
Applications are available online here  or by request via email info@moremiinitiative.org

Completed application forms must be submitted along with two recommendation letters and a CV. All applications and supporting documents must be submitted by email.

The deadline for completed MILEAD Fellows applications must be submitted for review by March 15, 2013.

Call For Submissions:

Reproductive Justice Essays by

Midwest Women of Color (Midwest US)

Deadline: 31 March 2013

Anthology is looking for women of color from the Midwestern US to write for an upcoming publication of essays. The goal of this project is to publish the voices and experiences of women of color out of the Midwest around sexual health, reproductive justice, and abortion.

With abortion rights constantly being challenged throughout the United States, the voices and contributions of women of color are rarely heard or acknowledged in this dialogue. These voices deserve to be heard and respected in the larger pro-choice movement. As these are valid issues that impact our lives, women of color will continue to fight for autonomy and justice.

All proceeds from this publication will benefit the Chicago Abortion Fund in assisting low-income women of color in obtaining abortion access. This anthology will be published in honor of the Chicago Abortion Fund’s 30th Year Anniversary in 2014. This anthology will be edited by Gaylon Alcaraz and J. Bates.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

• Authors must be women of color currently living in or originally from the Midwestern United States (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin).

• Non-fiction essays.

• 1,000 words or less. Let us know if you need more space.

• The work you submit must be your own original writing. We will not accept the work of others or works that have been previously published in other books/magazines/etc.

• An e-mail address must accompany all work so that we may get in touch with you.

• By submitting your work, you give us your permission to publish your writing both on-line and in print.

• Please include a brief biography (100 words or less) with your writing.

• Pick any of these topics: sexual health, reproductive justice, abortion, pro-choice ideas, pro-choice movement, reproductive rights.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For queries/ submissions: womenofcolorspeakout@gmail.com

Website: http://www.chicagoabortionfund.org/

 

CFP: 4th Annual African Languages

in the Disciplines Conference (ALD),

Harvard University.

By Africa in Words Guest on 15 February , 2013 

AiW Guest Stephanie Bosch Santana.

CALL FOR PAPERS

 The African Language Program in the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University presents the

4^th Annual African Languages in the Disciplines Conference (ALD)

 Conference date: April 25, 2013

Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

 Abstract deadline February 28, 2013 (details below).

Please join us on April 25, 2013 for the fourth annual ALD conference, which will build on the important conversations of the previous three years as well as celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the African Language Program at Harvard.

This conference brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines as well as African heritage communities to discuss the vital role that African languages play in the study of Africa and the diaspora. Possible themes include, but are not limited to, the contribution of African languages to the study of literature, music, film, performance, visual arts, media studies, history, philosophy, religion, anthropology, sociology, gender studies, political science, psychology, economics, education, geography, environmental science, legal studies, and public health. Past conferences have also engaged in larger conversations about issues of translation, regional languages, new orthographies, and indigenous literary and historical genres, among others.

Please apply via e-mail to harvardald@gmail.com by February 28, 2013. We ask for a 250-word abstract outlining a 15-minute presentation as well as a brief biography. Please contact the conference organizers at the same e-mail address with any questions.

This conference is part of a two-day event sponsored by the Department of African and African American Studies and the Committee on African Studies. An exciting partner conference entitled Extractive Economies and the State in Contemporary Africa will be held on April 26, 2013 and ALD participants are encouraged to attend.

idalia: “bro’s before ho’s”

— a queer latina responds

to hyper-masculinity and

biphobia in brown boi culture

02/12/2013

Studology 101, created by lesbian of color duo, Pookz and DZ, is a “movement to eliminate discrimination through education.” Their weapon of choice? YouTube.

Meet Brown Boi Media Gurus, Studology 101

The Studology 101 YouTube channel boasts over 28,000 subscribers and 153 short videos, each starring Pookz and DZ, leverage the popular video-sharing platform to explore and discuss the daily lives of “studs” (a term typically used to describe women of color who are masculine of center.). Their goal is to educate the general population on the experiences faced by masculine women of color and stir dialogue around sometimes taboo issues in queer women of color communities.

One of their most recent videos, titled “Bisexual Studs” came to our attention via a Facebook share. The video depicts what happens when a stud reveals to her long time “bro friend” that she is dating a man. Excited to facilitate a conversation on the rarely explored topic, we posted the YouTube video on QWOC Media Wire’s Facebook page and received a ton of responses,

One such comment came from Nikki Lopez, a Latina  queer, masculine of center woman who is a DJ and community organizer based in Philadelphia, PA. Here Nikki elaborates on her reaction to the video, including its potential to instigate powerful conversations, but how we must be careful about how the conversation about queerness and bisexuality is shaped.

Nikki’s Thoughts: “Hyper-Masculinity and Invisibility of Bisexuality in Stud Culture” 

“Initially, I was torn with this video. I have loved the work that studology 101 has done in the past. I herald them as trailblazers when it comes to showcasing media that’s cutting edge and against the waves of mainstream, especially as two masculine of center women, who love women. I commend the video for raising the topic of bisexuality which is never talked about in our communities. But I was disappointed to find the video merely scratched the surface.

A lot of the language around accepting bisexual studs that’s used in this video is the same language I hear when people speak about accepting homosexuality “if a stud wants to date a dude too, that’s a personal choice- I mean I’m not gonna judge you for it….what you do in your bedroom is your business.” The same idea that sexuality is only tolerated because it’s none of our business what folks do in their bedrooms.

But it is our business, because how we as a community talk around this issue has very real effects. Real life repercussions happen in public. Imagine a stud walking in with her man to chill with her crew- of course there are going to be VERY real reactions.

In the video, it was clear a sense of loyalty, or “brotherhood” was lost when the actor finally comes out as dating the man who called her phone. There was even a hint of disgust when the actor pleaded to the friend she came out to “you can’t accept I’m trying to be myself” and was responded to in quick bravado “nope sure can’t”. While this act is scripted, I’m sure it has happened in any one of our living rooms.

How can bisexual studs, truly exist or be accepted, in a culture (stud culture) that models itself around performing hyper-masculinity?

We heard the “bros before hoes” mantra sung in unison among the “brothers”  in the video – a collective expression of masculinity that unites the crew, especially when discussing other women. Is some form of masculinity altered  or not valid now that one of the brothers is dating a man?

Apparently the rule is: Masculine folks date feminine women. But where have we heard this before? “Men date women, Males date females, that other ish is gay.”  By not accepting bisexual studs, or talking about them bisexuals in general as only being tolerated behind closed doors (much like homophobic people do about gay people) we deny bisexuality, we deny our brothers and sisters their existence–we erase them in public… in  bars, in social spaces, and ultimately, important discussions around advocacy and public policy.

After watching this video, I was reminded why I choose queer to identify myself. I choose this term because claiming it, and saying it out loud -“queer”- tells you nothing about it me. It invites you to explore more, ask questions and not always take what you see in front of you at face value. It’s not a term for everyone, but for me it’s a way to exist in a world where I’m not constantly stuck in a label, box or category. I can breathe. I can be seen, fully and wholly as a person, not just another letter that fits neatly into the boxes of LGBT identity.”

Check out the video yourself here:

In light of this critique, I also echo Nikki’s sentiments about crediting the ways Studology 101 has (and is still using) media to begin critical conversations within the queer women of color community. But, is simply beginning the conversation enough?

Do you agree with Nikki’s observations above? Have you seen/experienced instances similar to the scenario enacted in the video? What makes bisexuality from masculine woman of color such a taboo?

NOTE: Before white people chime in about how this doesn’t just affect queer people of color (QPOC), please respect that this space is dedicated to exploring issues from a QPOC perspective. We welcome comments and engagement as long as it doesn’t attempt a universalist/white-centering of the conversation we’re attempting to facilitate here. 

“Bro’s Before Ho’s”- A Queer Latina Responds to Hyper-Masculinity & Biphobia in Brown Boi Culture | QWOC Media Wire.

THE HARVEST

climateadaptation:

The Harvest is a documentary that exposes child labor in American agriculture. Did you know 400,000 children work the fields? Yeah, me neither. H/T to keen-eyed follower: coincidenciaharmonica. Apparently, the agriculture industry is exempt from many child labor laws. There’s no overtime pay, either.

Look, I don’t know enough to comment, but my gut says: no.

Why did I post this? Because of that hot Super Bowl Dodge truck commercial. Check it out. And check out the revision by Latino Rebels, posted by the Future Journalism Project.

 

futurejournalismproject:

So God Made a (Latino) Farmer

fjp-latinamerica:

One of the most popular ads during the Super Bowl was for the Dodge Ram. The spot took a 1978 speech by the late Paul Harvey and played it against images of American farmers.

Something was missing though. We let Latino Rebels take it away:

Do you notice anything about the farmers being featured in the commercial?

Yeah, 100% Americana. An America that seems to be stuck in another time. Last time we checked, the commercial overlooked a few other farmers, the over 3 million workers who contribute to the country’s $28+ billion fruit and vegetable industry. Or what about the fact that “the majority (72%) of all farmworkers were foreign-born, with 68 percent of all farmworkers were born in Mexico?” We are guessing that displaying the REAL FACE of farming in the United States would that have been way too uncomfortable to show? By the way, we know you showed only two Latino faces for a second, but that didn’t cut it, Chrysler. 

So, a remake is in order. Doing so above is the award winning investigative reporter Issac Cubillos, 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ All of this. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I know a lot of things, but I certainly didn’t know this stat: 72% of all farm workers were foreign born. Incredible statistic. Big thanks to the Future Journalism Project.

(via thenoobyorker)

 

 

__________________________

 

Some facts from The Harvest:

More than 400,000 children work in American fields to harvest the food we all eat

Children working in agriculture endure lives of extreme poverty

• The average farmworker family makes less than $17,500 a year, well below the poverty level for a family of four.

• Poverty among farmworkers is two times that of workers in other occupations

• Farmworkers can be paid hourly, daily, by the piece or receive a salary, but they are always legally exempt from receiving overtime and often from receiving even minimum wage.

• Families often cannot afford childcare and so have no choice but to bring their children out into the fields.

• Increasing the incomes of migrant farmworkers by 40% would add just $15 to what the average US household spends every year on fruits and vegetables, according to a researcher at University of California Davis.
  

Children who work as farm laborers do not have access to proper education

• Working hours outside of school are unlimited in agriculture.

• On average, children in agriculture work 30 hours a week, often migrating from May – November, making it exceedingly difficult to succeed in school.

• Almost 40% of farm workers migrate and their children suffer the instability of a nomadic lifestyle, potentially working in multiple states in a given season and attending multiple schools each with a different curriculum and standards.

• Migrant children drop out of school at 4 times the national rate.

Children face health hazards and fatalities in the fields

• According to the USDA, agriculture is the most hazardous occupation for child workers in the US

• The risk of fatal injuries for children working in agriculture is 4 times that of other young workers.

• Child farm workers are especially vulnerable to repetitive-motion injury

• Farmworkers labor in extreme temperatures and die from heat exposure at a rate 20 times that of other US workers and children are significantly more susceptible to heat stress than adults. Heat illness can lead to temporary illness, brain damage, and death.

• Farmworkers are provided with substandard housing and sanitation facilities. As many as 15%-20% of farms lack toilets and drinking water for workers, even though they are required to provide them. Farms with 10 or fewer workers are not required to provide them at all.

• EPA pesticide regulations are set using a 154-pound adult male as a model. They do not take children or pregnant women into consideration.

• Research indicates that child farmworkers have a much higher rate of acute occupational pesticide-related illness than children in other industries and that there is a strong link between pesticide exposure and developmental disabilities. Long-term exposure in adults is associated with chronic health problems such as cancer, neurologic problems, and reproductive problems.

• 64% of farmworkers do not get healthcare because it is “too expensive”

(via browngurlwfro)

Friday, 8 February 2013

The House at Sugar Beach,

2008, Helene Cooper 

My first non-fiction of the year is about Helene Cooper, the so famous journalist of whom I have never heard about, until now. She is a descendant of the American freed slaves that colonised, settled and founded Liberia in the 1800s. They ruled one-sidedly. They acquired most of the lands, for generations they were the elite political ruling class of the country. On the other hand, the natives Liberians were derogatively regarded as the country people. They were servants, the poor lower class who worked on the farms and in the houses of people like Helene Cooper. Therefore, this blatant social inequality was the cause of an ongoing resentment harboured among the indigenous community. As a result, the native Liberian soldiers took advantage of the growing bitterness and carried out a  sanguinary coup d'état against the government which triggered the civil war that savaged Liberia for good fourteen years.

Both Helene who was fourteen and her family were victims of  the blood shedding and brutality of the coup. They were robbed of their good life, before they could finally make their way to the U.S.A. Over there, living was tough at first, nothing compared to her life in Liberia; however, Helene, with the help of her parents, succeeded in making a good life for herself working as a journalist. Twenty-three years later, after an incident where she almost lost her life while reporting in Iraq during the war, she realised it was time to visit all that she had left behind before being smuggled out. Most importantly, she wanted to meet once more her foster native sister. And as well, visit her family house on Sugar Beach. In short,  Helene wanted to reconcile with her past.

If you are an avid reader as myself, you would notice that Helene's writing style is nothing compared to Achebe, Adichie, Emecheta, Amadi and the rest who are novelist by profession. As we all know, they are poetic, elegiac, lyrical and so on and so forth. Even so, Helen did not disappoint with The House at Sugar Beach. Yes, her story grabbed my attention from the first page, it quite often kept me on the edge of my seat. For this reason, it is rated five stars and worth reading, an interesting insight into the history of Liberia. I recommend it to all and sundry. What an easy read!

At long last,  I believe now, the Native and Americo Liberians alike have understood that resources and opportunity in their small country would be distributed on an equal basis.

Even though I derive so much pleasure from reading fiction novels, I am as well a non-fiction lover. Two novels of this genre made it up to my top ten must read 2012. They were A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah and Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Two of which I hold in high esteem; hence, the old adage the truth is stranger than fiction is eventually consolidated. The House at Sugar Beach now pertains to this category. In order to see other non-fiction I have read so far please click here. Hopefully, this year I am looking forward to reading as many of this genre as possible. Of course, in the African literature.

An addendum: another recommendation of mine to the Library.

Bengalis and their Puerto Rican and African-American wives at a 1952 banquet at New York's Pakistan League of America.

 

February 15th, 2013

Bengali Harlem:

Author documents

a lost history of immigration

in America

Editor's note: CNN's Moni Basu, a Bengali immigrant, was born in Kolkata, India.

By Moni Basu, CNN

(CNN) – In the next few weeks, Fatima Shaik, an African-American, Christian woman, will travel “home” from New York to Kolkata, India.

It will be a journey steeped in a history that has remained unknown until the publication last month of a revelatory book by Vivek Bald. And it will be a journey of contemplation as Shaik, 60, meets for the first time ancestors with whom she has little in common.

“I want to go back because I want to find some sort of closure for my family, said Shaik, an author and scholar of the Afro-Creole experience.

Fatima Shaik's grandfather settled in New Orleans. She is going to India to see his home.

 

That Americans like Shaik, who identify as black, are linked by blood to a people on the Indian subcontinent seems, at first, improbable.

South Asian immigration boomed in this country after the passage of landmark immigration legislation in 1965. But long before that, there were smaller waves of new Americans who hailed from India under the British Empire.

The first group, to which Shaik’s grandfather, Shaik Mohamed Musa, belonged, consisted of peddlers who came to these shores in the 1890s, according to Bald. They sold embroidered silks and cottons and other “exotic” wares from the East on the boardwalks of Asbury Park and Atlantic City, New Jersey. They eventually made their way south to cities like New Orleans and Atlanta and even farther to Central America.

The second wave came in the 1920s and ‘30s. They were seamen, some merchant marines.

Most were Muslim men from what was then the Indian province of Bengal and in many ways, they were the opposite of the stereotype of today’s well-heeled, highly educated South Asians.

South Asian immigration was illegal then – the 1917 Immigration Act barred all idiots, imbeciles, criminals and people from the “Asiatic Barred Zone.”

The Bengalis got off ships with little to their name.

They were mostly illiterate and worked as cooks, dishwashers, merchants, subway laborers. In New York, they gradually formed a small community of sorts in Spanish Harlem. They occupied apartments and tenement housing on streets in the 100s. They worked hard.

And they did all they could do to become American in a nation of segregation and prejudice.

A huge part of that meant marrying Latino and African-American women – there were no Bengali women around - and letting go of the world they left behind.

Unlike other immigrants of the time, they didn’t settle in their own enclaves. Rather, they began life anew in established neighborhoods of color: Harlem, West Baltimore and in New Orleans, Treme.

By doing so, they also became a part of black and Latino heritage in America.

Vivek Bald's new book on Bengali migration tells a history that has been largely unknown.

 

“One of the most important things I took from the research is the fact that in the years of Asian exclusion, African-American and Puerto Rican communities actually gave (the Bengali men) the possibilities and the shelter to rebuild their lives,” said Bald, a documentarian who teaches writing and digital media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Those communities lived up to the promise of the nation when the nation failed to do so … because they were equally marginalized and equally deprived of full membership.”

Musa married Tennie Ford, a black Catholic woman. They raised their children near New Orleans’ Congo Square, where slaves once gathered. Ford took her children to church on Sundays while Musa knelt on a prayer rug and faced Mecca.

Musa died when Ford was pregnant with her son. Ford raised her children with African-American traditions; the ties to Bengal faded.

Shaik was aware of her Indian roots. Her name was the first obvious hint.

When she was little, in the 1950s and ‘60s, she rushed to the porch when phone books arrived with a thud. Her family was the only Shaik. She longed to find another name that was similar.

In India, the history of Bengali peoples evolved and was documented in print as India gained independence in 1947 and the nation was partitioned. East Bengal became East Pakistan and later, in 1971, Bangladesh.

But the sons of that land who came to America seeking a better life remained invisible. Until Bald began digging around.

Last month, he published  "Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America.”

The book has generated palpable excitement among the descendants of the Bengali immigrants.  

“I just said, ‘wow,’” said Nurul Amin, 62, whose father once sold hotdogs from a Harlem pushcart.

“This put a stamp on our world,” he said.

Shaik, an author and scholar of the Afro-Creole experience, said she was finally learning her grandfather’s history. It dispelled notions of a monolithic black identity and connected her to a faraway land.

'Dishwasher dreams'

California native Vivek Bald grew up with a strong sense of connection to India. He heard stories from his Indian immigrant mother that made a mark when he began making movies about the diaspora.

He’d produced a documentary about taxi drivers and was struck by the class divide in South Asian communities in America. The people who came in the wake of 1965 had taken the reins of community representation. Yet, they had little in common with newer waves of working-class immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Bald's research led to his newly published book documenting the first waves of Bengali immigration.

 

In his exploration of the diaspora, he met actor and stand-up comic Aladdin Ullah, 44, one of the sons of Habib Ullah, who’d arrived by ship from what is now Bangladesh in the 1920s. Bald was fascinated with Ullah’s story. He’d never imagined such a history.

“This was a population who came to the United States at a time when this country had erected quite draconian race-based immigration laws,” Bald said. “They came during that time but were able to build networks in order to access jobs all over the United States.

“The story,” said Bald, “was so completely different than what I had heard about South Asian immigration in the United States.”

Their memories had survived in the African-American and Latino families into which they married.

Bald began researching their history. It took him nine years to meticulously comb through marriage and death records, other court documents, newspaper stories and archival treasures.

He is now in the process of making a documentary film.

The project became a series of astonishments for Bald.

“I think the revelations I had along the way had to do with how resourceful both of these groups of men were in dealing with a home country that was under the rule of the British and on the other hand, another country that was closing its doors to them and passing increasingly more restrictive and racist immigration laws,” Bald said.

Aladdin Ullah, whose one-man act “Dishwasher Dreams” explores his father’s experiences, imagined how difficult life must have been for the Bengalis.

“These were illiterate men who came to America with hopes of a better life. That’s like me going to Sweden to start a Mexican restaurant,” he said.

“They learned the American hustle, not the American Dream.”

Ullah was young when his father died.

“I rejected my culture. I was a hip-hop kid, a kid from Harlem. I listen to rap. I didn’t have any connection to Bengalis.”

But it was an acting role that led Ullah to reconsider his father’s identity.

He was preparing to play the part of a stereotypical Middle Eastern prince in a Hollywood movie. “Death to America,” he shouted at the mirror, practicing his line.

He reflected on his father. He was not a king; he was a dishwasher.

“I felt my father’s presence in that hotel room.”

Ullah wanted to know more.

Banglarican

Habib Ullah and Ibrahim Chowdry likely arrived in New York City some time in the 1920s.

Chowdry had been a student leader back home in East Bengal and fled after British authorities were alerted to his activities. He rose to prominence in New York as a Bengali community leader.

Habib Ullah came from Noakhali in what is now Bangladesh and settled in Harlem.

 

Ullah left East Bengal’s rural Noakhali district at the young age of 14, traveled to Calcutta and found a job on an outgoing ship.

Bald’s book documents Ullah’s arrival in Boston, where he either jumped ship or fell ill. His son, Habib Ullah Jr., always thought his father had gotten lost.

Either way, he ended up in New York, married a Puerto Rican woman, Victoria Echevarria, and moved to East Harlem.

South Asian immigrants today tend to be a more insulated community. Many parents urge their children to marry other “desis,” people of the Indian diaspora.

But back then, it was different. The Bengali Muslim men knew they had to do all they could to make it in America.

Echevarria died in 1952 and left her husband to raise the children. Ullah Jr. remembers his sister being sent off to his aunt’s house in New Jersey. He did the rest of his growing up with his father in an apartment on East 102nd Street.

His father worked as a cook at the Silver Palms restaurant on Sixth Avenue and 44th Street. He left the house at the crack of dawn for the subway ride. He came home tired, took a nap and then cooked dinner. Rice and curry. Later he and Chowdry opened their own restaurant, The Bengal Garden.

Occasionally they’d head down to the Indian seamen’s club in the Lower East Side and after 1947, to the Pakistan League of America, an organization Chowdry and Ullah co-founded.

Ullah Jr. called his father’s friends “Chacha,” the Bengali Muslim word for uncle. Some of them changed their Bengali names to Charlie and Harry and in the case of Ibrahim – Abraham.

Ullah Jr. even asked his father once to teach him Bengali. The answer was no.

“He wanted me to be an American boy,” Ullah Jr. said, trying to mimic a Bengali accent.

He remembered his father asking a literate friend to pen letters in Bengali to his mother and brother back in Noakhali.

“He would bring them home and I would address them and send them out,” he said.

Ullah Jr. grew up playing on the rooftops and hanging out on the streets.

The Puerto Ricans embraced each other, the blacks high-fived. And the Bengalis? They asked: “How was school?”

Ullah Jr. grew up speaking English and Spanish. The Bengali or Bangla side of him diminished but never went away.

“I’m a Banglarican,” said Ullah Jr. of his identity. “We assimilated into the neighborhood. I’m immersed in both cultures.”

In the late 1960s, his father, then ailing from asthma, returned to Noakhali to remarry. He returned with Moheama, a traditional Bengali woman who was much younger than her husband. Aladdin Ullah is her son.

Ullah Jr. wishes he had accompanied his father on that long trek home. He is 70 now and doesn’t think he will ever step foot on his father’s homeland.

“I have a whole family I have never met, and will never meet,” he said. “Now my father has passed away. His brother is gone. The lines of communication are gone.”

Curry on the stove

Chowdry became a key figure in New York. He lobbied Congress to change naturalization laws of the 1940s, connected with African-American Muslim groups in Harlem as well as Jewish and Christian leaders.

At age 32, he married Catherine, a 17-year-old woman who was born in Cuba to Puerto Rican parents, and had two children, Laily and Noor.

Ibrahim Chowdry became a key figure in New York's Bengali community, sort of a "go to" man.

 

Both Laily and Noor recalled a father who was busy; that he became the guy to call in the Bengali community. He was always rushing out of the house.

Except one day when Noor Chowdry had gone to the Bronx Zoo and come back with a 15-inch catfish he’d caught in the lake. His father was about to leave the house, but when he saw that fish, he took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and got a knife out.

Bengalis are known as fish lovers and Ibrahim Chowdry could not give up the thought of a spicy fish curry.

John Ali Jr. also remembers that Bengali food was the one constant from the homeland.

His father, Mustafa “John” Ali, like Chowdry, also came to play an important role for Bengali men in the industrial towns where he worked, including Chester, Pennsylvania, home to a Ford car factory and the Sun Shipbuilding plant along the Delaware River.

Ali learned English from listening to the radio and helped “anchor the broader network of escaped seamen in a series of key locations,” Bald wrote.

Ali Jr., 83, remembers his father always having a pot of curry and rice on the stove’s back burner. Just in case any of the Bengalis stopped by.

Ali Jr., who wrote on the last census that he was a “black Bangladeshi,” moved to Atlanta almost three decades ago, where he settled in the mostly black southwest neighborhood of Cascade. He married a black woman, as had his father, and never saw himself as anything else. In his tenure in the Army, he’d always been colored.

In his youth, he read a lot of Indian history, about independence and the infamous, 18th-century Black Hole of Calcutta incident in which prisoners suffocated in a dungeon.

He recalled his father listening to news about India on the radio and translating it for his fellow Bengalis who did not know English.

“I thought I would see Bangladesh one day,” he said. But he never did.

His father returned to his hometown of Sylhet in the 1960s after his wife's death. “I was surprised he went back,” Ali Jr. said. “He got homesick.”

Shortly after, his father died on his way back from Haj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage, in Saudi Arabia.

John Ali Jr. says there was always a pot of curry on the stove when he was growing up in case Bengali visitors showed up.

 

These days, Ali Jr. sees Bangladeshis running the corner gas station or convenience stores in his neighborhood.

“Salam alaikum,” they greet him.

“Alaikum salam,” answers Ali.

It’s not difficult to see why the Bengalis would assume this black Catholic man is one of their own. But beyond the universal Muslim greeting, Ali can say nothing to them in Bengali.

Going home

Fatima Shaik’s grandfather’s ancestry was a positive for her family who lived under the sting of racism and segregation in New Orleans.

Her family was told they were unworthy and ignorant. But they held onto the memories of Shaik Mohamed Musa, whose family owned land in India, who traveled across the world to come to America, who started a business.

With a father like that, her grandmother encouraged her dad, he could achieve anything.

“My father spoke of his father all his life.” Shaik said. “He always spoke about how important India was to him.”

Musa left behind a hookah from India, a few papers and jewelry, including a diamond stickpin. Hurricane Katrina washed away much of Shaik’s grandfather’s belongings. Her father died the following year.

Shaik began searching, “in earnest,” she wrote on the Bengali Harlem website, “as one suddenly does after realizing just how much is gone.”

She is excited about her journey to Kolkata, specifically to Hooghly, across the Ganges River, to the place from where her grandfather and many of the early "exotic" goods peddlers hailed. Director Kavery Kaul plans to document Shaik's trip in March for an upcoming film, "Streetcar to Calcutta."

"The story of Fatima's grandfather, Shaik Mohamed Musa, belongs to all of us," Kaul said from Kolkata. "It's the history of the Indian diaspora and the making of America, the story of long overlooked links between cultures that looks to the past as it points us ahead to the future of our global society.

"The project takes me back to Kolkata where I was born and it leads Fatima on a journey in search of the name she bears." Kaul said. "Entering a world so different, so far from home, is sure to give her another sense of belonging."

In some ways Shaik feels it will be a journey guided by spirits. She will be taking her grandfather and father to India – the home that one knew and the other always dreamed of knowing.